maybe i'm a lonely girl

Subject:	Right Back Where I Started
Time:	May 23rd, 2006

Crashing there had dug up old memories she had tried to bury a long time ago. She'd spent her days hiding, avoiding people. She hadn't had to hide like that since...Since before the first crash.

Everything had been fine at first. Well, fine in plane-crashing-from-the-sky-welcome-to-deserted-island terms. And then, the day after the crash, she had been walking down the beach, and she had seen something that had stopped her cold.

As she'd stared at the man not far ahead of her, she had gotten a feeling like a cold hand was squeezing on her heart. At first, she knew she must be seeing things. But as she examined him closely, she felt her hope of that draining away. If nothing else, the shaggy haircut was unmistakable. That was Sawyer.

She'd immediately turned and walked as fast as she could without running back the way she came. A shiver went down her spine, though the sun was beating down onto the beach, making the sand under her bare feet uncomfortable with every step. She didn't stop until she got back to the makeshift little lean-to she'd made for herself out of shards of sheet metal from the plane, and tarps, and blankets, and whatever she could find. Building it had given her an eerie sense of deja vu.

But then, as she'd ducked through the opening and sat down on her towel in the sand, she could think of nothing but what she'd seen. How the hell could he be there? What were the odds--that two people would be on two planes together, and both would crash on islands? Impossible. But she'd seen him. It was definently Sawyer.

Kate was scared. She'd always known that the changes she'd made to her appearance--dying her hair blonde, cutting it to be shoulder length--she'd known those wouldn't keep her from being recognized. But she hadn't seriously considered plastic surgery, because she hadn't really thought that anyone was looking for her. After they'd been rescued, and she was in an L.A. hospital, she'd told them her name was Judith Martha Wexler. She'd personally told them that Kate Austen was dead. And as soon as the doctor had left her room, she'd left.

When they'd been rescued, Kate had been faced with a sudden and frantic decision. She knew she had only two options--she could either turn herself in, and spend the rest of her life in jail...Or she could run. Again.

She didn't want to go back to that life, she really didn't. After all, who would look forward to such an unstable life, with no one you could really call a friend - or more. She wanted to settle down, and have a real life. And in the end, she couldn't face the stony consequences of what she'd done. So she'd gotten ahold of the manifest, and found someone Hurley had crossed out long ago. Judith Wexler had died in the crash.

She was ashamed of what she was doing, but she tried to justify it as being the last awful thing she'd ever do. Sometimes bad things had to be done in order to keep any more bad things from happening. If she could just live a normal life, she'd never have to steal or lie again.

But there she was. Drug back into her old life by this impossible coincidence. How could she possibly live safely when someone knew her? The old her--No, the real her. She swallowed hard as she forced herself to think of it that way. She was still Kate. She'd all but lost that identity, and she truly felt like she'd become the person she was. At first, she had felt like she was lying every time she'd answered a question about herself, or written her name or address. But it had become commonplace, and she'd begun to think nothing of it. She really felt like she was turning her life around.

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